Nanoribbons have been created

Scientists from Sweden and Finland have developed a novel and efficient way to synthesize graphene nanoribbons directly inside of single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Graphene is a one atom thin flake of plain carbon that has been found to have many exciting and unusual properties, such as being as good a conductor of electricity as copper and a better conductor of heat than any other material.

These possibilities can be exploited by creating lengths of graphene, known as nanoribbons, which have great potential to be used for electronics, solar cells and many other things, but making them is not easy.

In a study published by Nano Letter, associate professor Alexandr Talyzin and his research group at Umea University, together with colleagues from Professor Esko Kauppinen's group at Aalto University, found a way to link the molecules by using the hollow space inside the carbon nanotubes.

"We used coronene and perylene, which are large organic molecules, as building blocks to produce long and narrow graphene nanoribbons inside the tubes. The idea of using these molecules as building blocks for graphene synthesis was based on our previous study," professor Talyzin said.